Ice Q

What time are you usually playing and what skill level (rank) are you?  If you’re not getting full lobbies those are probably the two reasons why.  I usually play during prime time hours with friends and we get 4-5 games per night with and against full teams.  At least 5’s with or without goalies (our choice).

My club typically plays prime time. About 8 - 11 PM and most are games of 5s. We normally don't run with a human G. We will get matched up with the occasional 3 or 4 player club though. 

Skill rank isn't part of matchmaking so that wouldn't have anything to do with it. Possibly, it's just playing at an off-peak time or in a region with less players. My club is east coast US based so we're probably in a better position for more full match ups.

I like the idea of joining mid game but ONLY if you were already in the game and got disconnected for whatever reason.  I would hate to be playing a good game winning with friends only to have one get disconnected and replaced with a well known troll or scrub without our approval.  Then that replacement player is blocking our friends/teammate from rejoining.  

Agreed. I feel like this could be used to troll or maybe bring in a ringer at the last minute. I don't have an issue with bringing someone back that disconnected from the same game though. I'm sure there would be technical issues to deal with as well as there's always the risk it could cause a desync.

PlayoffError​ 

Long-term the best solution to this is to find a way to bring in and keep new players.  Drop-ins should be the mode that gets new players involved, but it's been a cesspit for years.  I can't imagine being a new player, playing some games of drop-in and saying to myself "I want to play more of this".  

Yeah. It's a difficult mode for new players for sure. This would be a challenge as it means better anti-griefing measures. Which I'm sure we'd all love to have. It's just too easy for one person to ruin the experience for everyone else.

I honestly don't even know if there's a solution.  The only thing I can think of is to remove player ranking from the mode entirely in an attempt to tone down the toxic competitiveness in what should be a casual mode, but I'm sure that would go over like a lead balloon.

That might actually make it worse. When there's no punishment and no rank to play for, it would probably encourage more trolling. Maybe just take rank out of full drop-in games and reserve rank increase/decrease for club.